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Friday, May 30, 2008

Now the week is over, night is coming on. Shadows of the evening creep across the sky.....

Well, however dreamed 4 hours per day was enough to make any significant improvement was not one woman. Yup..... my house has an entry cleaned. Nothing else looks like it was touched by a cleaning hand. The entry I finished today, or I am sure it would already look like I didn't even think of cleaning it.

I am sure if i could devote 4 whole hours per day to cleaning, we might make a difference... but alass, hours chasing children, feeding children and taking care of buisness ends of life seem to make those 4 hours disappear with out much help. We found some new frames for Galen's glasses, which is useful, because in an autistic fit this afternoon he threw his current ones out the car window, which were immediately ran over. (that was after he threw his shoes in the garbage and tried to walk to grandmas (ie run away).

Mike, however, after this being the second rainy day in a row, decided that some cleaning work, would count as active on his part. Yup he did up the dishes, even all the pans that have been waiting.

Today, I spent the morning on business... shipping, packing stuff, then brought Galen to find new glasses, because he lenses kept falling out. And Then this afternoon, I did accounting, book keeping, cleaned the entry, had a nap, made dinner, desert, held family scripture study and took care of Ian's needs, and finished one more of my midwifery books.

So please forgive me if I do not know how to sum it all up. My brain is already on maternity leave.

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

The reason why we "Average" 4 hours per day of physical labor is for days like today. It was drop dead gorgeous outside, and so my husband was not the only one planning to use our lawn mower today. And the materials for finishing our rabbit pen didn't arrive until it was almost time to leave.

However, he spent the afternoon helping me make 8 batches of kung pow chicken, and I assured him that food processing counted as physical labor.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

And when my belly speaks, I listen. It knows more then I do at the moment.

Well, today's accounting (So far) comes to 6 hours physical labor, and 1 1/2 hours of mental labors. And to that I plan to add: 1 hour for Ian care (physical labor) and time spent reading and studying my midwifery.

We hauled a truck load to the dump today, got some old appliances and mattresses out of our yard, worked like the dicken trying to get Galen shod, his glasses fixed and get him off to school.

After my nap I spent 45 minutes scrubbing my bathroom. The bathroom needs deep scrubs 1-2 times per week, and light cleans every day. We blame Ian's issues. Then I did dinner.... and that is where my belly told me to stop. So I have. The upstairs bathroom, the car seats and many other items have to wait until tomorrow for be worked on.- if I manage to get that far.

Tomorrow will bring new challenges. I have a chineze buffet to cook, boy scouts award banquet and customers to appease. We will see how tomorrow accounts, when it is all added up, but for tonight... I am mostly done.

Monday, May 26, 2008

How true that is, especially a Mother's work.However, saying this I am attempting to prepare to build and inhabit an ARC.

And in so doing, I will attempt to regulate more time to classic homestead work.I am planning on 4 hours per day of physical labor, and 4 hours per day of mental labor (averages).

This being said, I am a women, and will be very surprised if 8 hours per day of labor is all I put in.

So I shall define the fields of labor of which I am speaking.

Physical Labor: active, moving labor that takes more brawn then brain. For me this includes cooking, gardening, housekeeping and active childcare. It also includes house, yard and orchard maintenance, and building. (ps, growing babies takes a lot of physical work)

Mental labor: reading, writing, planning and preparing. This can include bill paying, accounting, social networking and so on. They key element is that it does not include much physical labor. This can also include work on my other businesses and meetings of all sorts.

Days off: one must always define if they are talking every day, or if they allow themselves Sabbaths and holidays. I allow myself Sabbaths, a day to focus on and plan for spiritual things. A day of rest, repose, repentance and often long naps.

Major holidays are also days to skip traditional work patterns and spend it in work patterns of a very different nature. For a woman this means, more time in the kitchen, more time chasing children and more time trying to arrange everything.- and if you ever tried to find a baby sitter for my 4 kids, you'd know what I'd mean.

This blog will serve as a journal of sorts of the labors I am pursuing, and how well I am doing at it. I hope my husband will join me and add entries about his labors too.